sounds like fun

Life is noisy. From the sounds that come from all of our machines and traffic and animals and people, there are noises all around us, almost all the time. But how often do we stop and think about each individual noise? And how often do we teach kids about how sounds make life better?

Buzz! Boom! Bang! does just that. This read-aloud book is just pages and pages of illustrations of everyday things, encouraging readers to make each noise they want to. There’s a horse and a race car, ping pong ball and cannonball, a clap of thunder, a balloon popping, a fart. There is a pig bouncing on a trampoline (and getting thrown off). There is a band where the musicians are all bugs (and a spider). There is a sled being pulled on the snow and an astronaut in space.

There are 168 pages, and each page has a colorful illustration of a noise, from an airplane overhead to a bunch of bees. There is singing, tickling, and taking a shower, and well over a hundred different scenarios where kids can use their imagination to create noise to go along with the art. Some of these scenes are everyday things, and others are pure fiction, but each is vivid and expressive and will elicit a response from an engaged reader.

Buzz! Boom! Bang! is a great book to connect with a child, to spend some quality one-on-one time exploring their imagination and starting conversations. I think this would be especially good for neurodivergent children, as many love to make sounds and repeat them. This would be a great resource to draw them out and connect with them over their ideas of the noises that go along with these pages.

I loved this book for the creative possibilities. Kids could use these pictures to create sounds and even whole stories about what’s going on. They are colorful and interesting, and with so many pages available, you could read this book over and over with a kid and not see the same page twice if you didn’t want to. Obviously, it wouldn’t work well in a space that is meant to be quiet, and it might be a little too disruptive at bedtime, but if you’re in a space where the kids can be as boisterous and bubbly as they want to be, Buzz! Boom! Bang! could encourage children to be joyful and inventive and exuberant. (And it could also work in lieu of a drum set if you want some sort of revenge on that child’s parents.)

Egalleys for Buzz! Boom! Bang! The Book of Sounds were provided by NorthSouth Books through NetGalley, with many thanks, but the opinions are mine.